


Not A (Human) Mutant

by Mtorolite



Category: Homestuck, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, crossover fic, karkat cursing, karkat meets the xmen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-22
Updated: 2014-09-22
Packaged: 2018-02-18 08:38:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2342045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mtorolite/pseuds/Mtorolite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SHIELD discovers a young gray mutant in the Pacific Norhwest and hands him over to Xavier. Xavier just wants to help, but this mutant is entertaining a severe delusion on top of everything else - that he's an alien from another world</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not A (Human) Mutant

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BiblioMatsuri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BiblioMatsuri/gifts).



> Part of the When Worlds Collide: Crossover Fanwork Exchange. It didn't get completely beta'd due to my slow writing and my beta's time restraints, so please let me know if there are editing issues or revisions that need to happen! I hope you enjoy!

Nick Fury had a system when it came to mutants, and it was pretty simple.  
1\. If the mutant in question had a criminal history and their powers were a threat to national security, they got locked up.  
2\. If the mutant in question had powers that were a threat to national security, but no criminal history, they went to Xavier to be monitored closely.  
3\. If the mutant in question did not have powers that were a threat to national security, they went to Xavier to deal with until such time as they became a threat to national security.   
So when some SHIELD agents picked up a shouty grey kid in Washington, Fury didn't worry too much. Mutants were Xavier's bag - he dealt with aliens and invasions. Mutants went to Xavier.

 

Xavier also had a system. He described it as maintaining a welcoming environment and ensuring that all new comers to the Mansion had somewhere safe and comfortable to sleep; friendly faces to look for, space for time alone, and, most importantly, a well stocked kitchen.  
Logan described it as mother henning people.

It became apparent very quickly that Xavier's approach might need some refining a few hours into the new mutant's stay. 

He had arrived via SHIELD helicopter in full body cuff; several of the younger mutants whispered about his muzzle, covering the lower part of his face and disguising his facial features like the creepy cannibal in those old movies.

“Helloooo, Clarice . . .” No-Girl whispered, and ran away with the other young mutants. The new guy was really weird looking! Even for a mutant.

He was eyed on all sides as Storm and two of SHIELD agents hurried the handcart he was strapped to into the elevator, and down into the bowels of the mansion. They saw grey skin – not smooth or soft looking, like the skin they were use to, but hard and brittle. Someone said he looked like he had roach armor. His hair looked sharp and disorganized, a bunch of tiny knives sprouting from someone’s head. His eyes looked dangerous – big cat eyes. And then their were the horns.

Honestly, the horns were the last thing they noticed. Like two slightly pieces of candy corn, they curled up just an inch or so out of his hair, and compared to the rest of him, they were practically cute. Whatever the horns were for, they made him look less harmless.

But whenever he felt someone staring, he turned to face them and growled. The eyes and the snarl chased the gawkers away until the elevator doors dinged shut again.

Xavier’s voice came through crisp and clear to all four people in the elevator.

“I understand that this young mutant’s personality is somewhat volatile, but from what Fury sent me I do not see that his powers warrant these restraints. Can you remove them please?”

The two SHIELD agents were use to this sort of thing, and shrugged it off after replying out loud with an “Against regulations” into the elevator car. They were supposed to deliver the mutant to the infirmary ward of the mansion and then they were clearing out. The X-men and their boss could handle it from there.

Storm replied calmly that the Agents seemed to believe that the restraints were entirely necessary as the young man seemed excitable and the full extent of his powers remained unclear, and that once in the safety of the infirmary, she would assist Beast in making young Mr. Vantas comfortable.

 

The strapped in mutant snarled when he heard the voice in his head - he had never trusted psychics, even if this one seemed to be just a voice and not an insidious presence taking over his limbs and making him, say, jump over a cliff to land broken on the beach below. 

As he was rolled into the infirmary, his yellow eyes widened again. There was some kind of crazy blue lusus loping toward him on all four limbs. And it was wearing glasses.

“Well, my boy, I’m so glad to have you join us here at the X-mansion! Go ahead, Agents, I’m sure that Storm has signed for him and everything is in good order. Let’s just get you unstrapped, and we can get your physical started while we wait for the Professor to emerge from Cerebro, alright?”

“Hank, I would - “

Unfortunately, Dr. McCoy was too quick and Storm spoke to slowly. As soon as the first buckle on the body cuff was loosened, the boy’s thick arms flexed; he some how bent himself halfway around, and he pulled himself out of the rest of the body cuff. Two rainbow colored sickles appeared from thin air, and he jumped onto one of the hospital beds, standing high above the sleeping occupant, well away from Storm and Beast.

Beast started responding, moving to tackle the boy down from his perch, but Xavier’s voice - his real voice this time - stopped him. All of the conscious heads turned to look as Professor Xavier rolled in. 

“Hank - wait! I believe young Mr. Vantas is just shocked, and on the defensive after his treatment at the hands of SHIELD. Let’s speak for a few minutes, and allow him to get comfortable. I’m sure we can understand his fear and anger, and I’m sure he will be quite willing to remove himself from Rogue’s bed and put his weapons away. Is that right, Mr. Vantas?”  
Still high on his perch, the boy had transferred both sickles to his right hand - claw? - and was tearing at the muzzle still strapped around his face. Instead of removing the buckle around the back of his neck, his nails - although, again, claw seemed to be the more fitting word, especially to Hank - his nails tearing through the thick leather of the muzzle to let it fall onto the bed. 

“Are you people completely fucking blind? Did carrion-eating wingbeasts pluck out your useless human ganderbulbs, swallow them down and shit them out? For the hundredth fucking time, you blithering feculant shitholes, I’m not a human mutant! I’m a fucking troll!”

“Language, please, Mr. Vantas,” Xavier said automatically. It was hard to set the teacher in him aside sometimes. 

The human mutants in the room - less Rogue, who was waking up and quite liable to be cranky, what with the concussion and broken ribs - had all read the file SHIELD had forwarded after they picked up Vantas in the US’s northwest. They were aware of his apparent delusions; Xavier believed his past had been unpleasant enough that he blocked the memories and created an elaborate fantasy to escape into; one in which he was a member of an alien species known for violence and fear mongering; one in which he apparently had no family; and one, which Xavier thought odd, he remained some kind of social outcast due to his caste. Xavier was certain they could break down this delusion and start the healing process. But they had to get him calm first.

“Fuck that human noise, baldy. I don’t know what exactly happened when the Scratch went down, but I know that none of you are the humans I was expecting to find, and I know that (A) either there’s a barely sane clown, a fashionista with a grudge, a crazed wannabe legislacerator, and a huge douche with a lisp either running around this version of human existence causing some kind of interdimensional hullaballo or being carted into human diaper baby prisons, (B) the humans I was counting on to pull their miserable thinkpans out of their nooks and help save the entirety of paradox space are no where to be found and (C) what the hell is your blue lusus subsitute think he’s doing with that syringe? Get the fucking hell away from me, you big blueblooded sasquatch!”

Hank listened carefully, even as he moved his stethoscope down to his neck and put the syringes for blood tests down on one of his many trays. He had never heard the accent their newcomer spoke with before - the soft C’s and S’s hissed too much; the K’s had a hard, almost dental quality to them, and every schwa was pronounced like a flat, hard A - like Karkat had to guess at English pronunciation instead of being raised to it. 

Karkat jumped down from Rogue’s bed to lurk behind it, peering at the human mutants between Rogue’s rumblespheres and her jaw. He wanted to get a good look around and find someway to escape, now that he had use of his limbs again, but he was still kind of stiff and there were three of them. Not great odds for the shortest troll left in existence when they were obviously not as ill equipped for battle as the standard model human, if what he had seen in the halls was any metric to go by.

“Karkat, please - we know this must have been a trying few days for you. We just want to get you comfortable; then we can deal with these missing friends of yours. And your home and everything back in Washington - we can sort everything out. You’re in a safe place - a safe spot for mutants. You don’t have to be afraid here.” 

“Human mutants, maybe. Sorry, you giant peace gibbering mammals, I’ve heard enough of all this human peace, love, and free security over the past three nights. You braindead sacks of garbage can find some other troll to cocoon into a nest of sweet nothings and psychic brain mining - Karkat Vantas is out of here.”

It would have been a spectacular leap - he backed up, coiled his legs that were jointed in the wrong place, and sprung. He obviously meant to clear the bed and Xavier’s cueball head, but the combination of poorly stretched muscles and Rogue’s bare hand shooting out to grab his ankle stopped him mid flight. 

He sighed, dropped his sickles, and fell unconscious over Rogue’s legs. 

“Sorry, Professor, but Shouty McNubs here was giving me a splitting headache and I think maybe he just needs some time out to himself, y’know?”

Xavier allowed himself a deep frown at Rogue. He preferred to avoid situations like this.

“Hank - please, set him up on one of the beds. I’d prefer not to do this without his consent, but we need to make sure he’s in alright health. Go ahead and do the full physical while he’s out. Rogue - and I hope you all know I am against this sort of invasion of privacy, but from what I’ve read about Karkat Vantas from SHIELD and what he was projecting just a minute ago, this is the most cooperative we are likely to find him - what can you tell me about him?”

Rogue didn’t have the same qualms as Xavier did about information gathering. Weapon X had eliminated that from her system.

“Not much - I know he really does believe he’s not human, although he does seem to think he’s a mutant as well. No memories of Earth except through watching a few kids. Very worried about some pals of his, apparently also trolls. And that thing he does to make things appear from thin air is apparently some kind of tech, not a mutant power. It’s a sylladex, I think? That’s all I got.” 

“Thank you, Rogue. Hank - please let me know as soon as our guest wakes up. Storm - thank you for your help. I believe your class is beginning soon.” 

Karkat was out longer than he out to have been for the quick contact Rogue had with him. Either he was extra susceptible to her powers, or he was just exhausted, possibly both. He was out long enough for Hank to do some scans and collect some samples. Xavier came down to look at the xrays with Hank just as Karkat began to toss and turn. 

“Physiologically, Professor, he is at least as unique as me. Probably more so. His skeletal structure - well, he has two. His skin is at least partially exoskeleton, functioning as a basic thin armor plating; his bones are dense, and the shape, number, and connections don’t match up to homo sapiens at all. His hair doesn’t appear to be hair - it’s more like the texture of pine needles or insect antannae. I’m not sure what purpose it serves. His horns seem to be made of the same substance as teeth are made of; his blood is similar to ours, but look at the scans. See the DNA?”

“That doesn’t look like DNA, Hank. There’s no double helix, there.”

“Precisely! It’s amazing! Every mutant whose DNA I’ve had a chance to examine still has human looking DNA - 46 chromosomes, double helix, same four proteins. But Vantas doesn’t. His DNA looks more like RNA and the proteins don’t match up at all. I’ll have to spend more time to anaylze him, Professor, but - he really does seem not to be human.”

A snarl came from the bed where Karkat was now sitting up.

“What have I been telling all of you miserable bulge fondlers for the past three days? I’m not a human mutant! I am a troll! Now, get your weak ass human hands out of your ridiculous human pants and get me home!”


End file.
